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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22398199">Puppets</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowkat67/pseuds/shadowkat67'>shadowkat67</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Angel The Series - Season 5- Episode Reviews [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Angel: the Series</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Episode Related, Episode Review, Episode: s05e14 Smile Time, Gen, Meta, Reviews</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2004-02-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2004-02-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 09:48:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,219</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22398199</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowkat67/pseuds/shadowkat67</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Episode Review/Meta on Angel S 5.14 Episode Smile Time</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Angel/Nina Ash</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Angel The Series - Season 5- Episode Reviews [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1612354</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Puppets</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Well, I stupidly broke my vow and watched an entire episode of The Apprentice because my neighborhood was featured on it. <a id="cutid1" name="cutid1"></a> It was, by the way, there's the restaurant that used to be the Bagel Point Cafe, now the Hill Diner, and that was my block complete with kids playing basketball in the street. The apartments shown seemed much bigger and nicer than mine though.</p><p>If you want to see the evils of a capitalistic society gone hay-wire? Watch one of these reality shows. What a bunch of greedy, self-indulgent, whiny ....asswipes. (Sorry best word I could think of. And that's being nice.) In a way makes ATS 5.14 even funnier - perhaps network tv is being run by demons? It certainly would explain a lot. I am relieved I don't know any of these people and feel sorry for the people who do.</p><p>Last night's ATS episode is really interesting. Especially what's going on with Wes/Gunn/Fred/Lorne. And the fact that Angel is completely oblivious to it and what the mindwipe really did to Angel and to his friends. It made them Wolfram &amp; Hart's "puppets".  Since we're mostly in Angel's point of view this season, we've been more or less oblivious as well, but if we think about it a bit, we start seeing the signs.</p><p>
      <a id="cutid2" name="cutid2"></a>
    </p><p>" It's not about what Angel did to "Connor or what Angel did with the amulet,  it's about the compromise Angel made with W&amp;H regarding his friends in order to save Connor."</p><p>The hidden arc this season is the "mind wipe", it's what has been lurking in the background of every episode. But we aren't noticing it, because Angel is pointedly ignoring it. Closing his eyes to it. W&amp;H and Lindsey have been throwing distractions at Angel right and left, keeping him from noticing what is happening with his friends. He even states to Nina that he's not good at noticing things around him, opening up, but that's changed now - just when Nina attacks him. Clearly it hasn't.</p><p>Analogy as opposed to metaphor. Who are the real puppets in Smile Time? Felt Angel and the puppets running the children's show? Or the AI gang - Fred/Wes/Gunn and Lorne? We're shown children getting tempted into giving away their innocence, just as Fred/Wes/Gunn and Lorne have been tempted and are slowly having their innocence sucked out by W&amp;H. Lorne for instance no longer seems to be able to read people - or notice when he's being blocked, Gregor in fact feels sorry for him, because of his disability. This was Lorne's big deal for three seasons. I'm curious if the disability might be that Lorne's empathy is off and has been since Home, possibly before. Does anyone remember any evidence to the contrary? Yes, he reads all the employees of W&amp;H, but how do we know his readings were reliable? Also there's Gunn who has Flowers for Algernon syndrom - requiring knowledge to feel good. Fred whose suddenly gotten attracted to Wes and is relying far too much on science - she's still the most untainted of the bunch, the one member who was undecided along with possibly Wes - when Angel made his executive decision in Home.
And of course Wes who got nothing more than a pen out of the deal and doesn't remember his betrayal or why prophecies aren't always trustworthy.</p><p>I'm wondering if by allowing W&amp;H to mind-rape, as Cordy aptly calls it in <b>You're Welcome</b>, Angel may have doomed himself and his friends? The only question is to what? Did Angel inadvertently sell his friends' souls to W&amp;H in exchange for his son's new life and the amulet? Is that what the mind-wipe entailed?</p><p>In <b>Smile Time</b>: Gregor Framkin does a deal with the devil and as result all his employees become mindless drones, and he's nothing more than a tormented hand puppet, albeit a human one who wants to die.</p><p>Isn't it interesting that in "almost" every episode this season, the villain or person responsible is a human being? Not to mention a human being who is willing to negotiate or trade someone for something else? All the crimes these humans commit seem to be ones that are about trading one life or one thing for another. Contracts signed in blood. Which - wait we see Angel doing a lot of in Harm's Way, with Gunn hanging over his shoulder. Either that or "ends justifying the means" arrangements. And oh each villain seems to like the idea of implanting something - the puppet imagery.</p><p>Negotiating and trading - again a reference to Angel's deal with the Senior Partners via Lilah in Home. A deal Angel defends to Cordy in You're Welcome, stating he did it to save her life and Connor's. Ironic. Since Cordy in a way did the same thing in Birthday and The House Always Wins. Cordy would get this. So too would Spike - who has made his own share of deals - ie. the deal he made with Lurkee the demon to get his soul - which ended up with that nifty trigger device? But...what if the price is too high?</p><p>This is the question Lawson asks Angel in Why We Fight. What price is too high? He waves at Angel's friends who each stand on chairs with wires around their heads.<br/>
The analogy is wonderful - because that is the position Gunn, Fred and Wes have literally been in since Home. On chairs with wires around their heads. But Angel closes his eyes to it. Angel takes Gunn, Fred, Wes and even Lorne for granted. Yet, in every episode - it's those four (or if they aren't paying attention like in Soul Purpose, Spike) that save his butt. He can't do it alone. He *never* has. I'm curious, what would happen if Angel lost Wes,Fred, Gunn, Lorne, and Spike?</p><p>The most important episode this season was The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinquo - it's the episode that summed up in a nutshell what Angel had left to lose. Numero Cinquo makes it clear to Angel, that without his four brothers - he wasn't a hero. The heart stealing demon wasn't interested. It was when he was with them that he was a hero.</p><p>If we revisit the mind-wipe it won't be because of Connor, it will be because of those four people Angel has started to take for granted. And This is pure speculation - I'm not spoiled on this at all by the way: this time around, Angel may be put in the position of sacrificing his hopes and dreams for Connor, that perfect life he's given his son, in order to save his friends and avoid the fate of Numero Cinquo. I honestly think the question we should be asking is - was Connor's new life worth what Angel did to his friends?</p><p>I'm not positive but the puppets in Smile Time - may not have been metaphors for Angel but rather analogies. They were analogous of his friends. They had the same number - four puppets, four friends.</p><p> I keep wondering about the fine print of that agreement Angel made with W&amp;H...did he possibly sell out his friends in that deal with SP, without realizing it? Or is it at the back of his mind - as we see in the dreams in Soul Purpose? </p>
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